Jessica Hart - Bride for Hire

‘That’s not very likely, is it?’ said Seth with one of his disparaging looks, and Daisy folded her arms huffily.

‘You could pretend.’

‘I’m paying you to do the pretending, not me,’ he pointed out brutally. ‘And if you’re going to do it effectively you’re going to have to dress the part.’ He turned away to pick up the phone. ‘I’d better cancel our reservation.’

‘My dress isn’t that bad, is it?’ asked Daisy in dismay.

‘It is for what I had in mind,’ said Seth as he punched out a number. ‘I had intended to take you somewhere where we’d be noticed, but I’m not being photographed with you looking like a schoolgirl.’ He waited while the phone rang at the other end. ‘We’ll go somewhere quiet instead tonight.’

Daisy was secretly relieved as the lift slid silently back down to the ground floor. She wasn’t sure that she was quite ready to start acting out her role in front of the paparazzi just yet. A sleek black car was waiting outside the hotel entrance and at Seth’s appearance a uniformed chauffeur sprang into action, holding open the door for Daisy who sank wide-eyed back into the luxurious seat.

‘I’ve never been in a car like this before,’ she confided to Seth after he had given the chauffeur his instructions.

The glance he gave was half puzzled, half amused. ‘Don’t tell me that air of innocence is real after all?’

Daisy regretted her impulsive remark. She could still remember the look on his face as he had released her. ‘Perhaps you can act after all,’ he had said. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she wasn’t quite the actress she claimed to be! ‘I don’t usually travel in such style, that’s all,’ she said, trying to assume a world-weary air, but she wasn’t sure whether Seth was quite convinced. He continued to watch her with a speculative expression until they reached the restaurant.

Any hopes Daisy might have had about popping round the corner to a cheap and cheery Italian were dashed when the car drew up outside one of the most expensive restaurants in London, but at least they were shown to a secluded table and the atmosphere was dark and intimate and positively reeking with discretion. There would be no flashing cameras here.

She opened her menu with enthusiasm. ‘I’m starving,’ she said, momentarily forgetting her world-weary role. ‘I didn’t have time for lunch.’ Glancing across at Seth, she found him watching her with an oddly arrested look in his eyes and she lowered the menu guiltily. ‘Oh, dear, I suppose it’s not very sophisticated to be interested in food?’

Seth gave one of his sudden, heart-shaking smiles. ‘I won’t tell,’ he promised. ‘It’ll be a refreshing change to have a meal with a woman who doesn’t just push salad around her plate all evening.’

Trusting that to mean that she would be allowed a pudding as well, Daisy ordered the most substantial starter she could find and then dithered happily over a choice of main course until Seth grew impatient and ordered for her.

‘She’ll have the lamb,’ he said to the waiter, who had been standing there with his pencil patiently poised for some time.

‘I was just going to order the poussin,’ hissed Daisy indignantly as the waiter removed the menus with admirably concealed relief.

‘I thought you were hungry?’ he retorted. ‘If I hadn’t made the decision for you we’d have been here all night.’

Daisy contented herself with muttering under her breath and buttering her roll with a certain lavish defiance.

‘Talking of “all night”,’ Seth went on, leaning casually back in his chair, ‘you’d better move into my suite tomorrow.’

Daisy’s head jerked up, knife poised in mid-butter. ‘Move in?’ she echoed in dismay. ‘Why?’

‘It’s not for that rather nice body of yours which you keep so cleverly concealed beneath those shapeless clothes,’ he said with a dryness that sent the colour rushing to her cheeks.

Grateful for the dim light, Daisy reapplied herself to her roll and forced down the treacherous memory of his hands curving around her breasts and sliding down her spine, warm against her skin. ‘I don’t see why I have to move in with you.’

‘Because, Daisy, word will soon get around if I’m seen putting you chastely into a taxi every night and, while you and I may know that we’re not going to fall into bed as soon as we get in, we want everyone else to think that we can’t keep our hands off each other, don’t we?’

‘I don’t see how anyone’s going to know whether we sleep together or not,’ grumbled Daisy, who wished that she couldn’t imagine the prospect in quite such unnerving detail and was desperately trying to disguise her perturbation with bolshiness. ‘Why can’t I just sneak out the back way?’

‘Someone would be bound to see you and the next thing we’d know there’d be a snippet in the gossip columns, speculating about just how close our relationship was.’

‘But who cares what we do?’ cried Daisy. ‘Who on earth is going to be interested in what time I go home?’

Seth shrugged. ‘You’d be surprised. I’m afraid it’s one of the drawbacks of fame. People seem to think that as soon as you acquire money or influence you forfeit your right to privacy. It’s something you’re just going to have to get used to over the next few weeks. If no one was interested in me or Astra there wouldn’t be any need for you to be here at all, so you can thank the gossip columns for your job...and your job is living with me for the moment.’

‘Will...?’ She hesitated, cleared her throat and tried to sound unconcerned. ‘We won’t have to share a bed as well, will we?’

‘No.’ Seth’s eyes gleamed with ironic understanding. ‘There’s another room in the suite. Maria’s been using it, but she’s going to stay with friends so she won’t need it. She’ll come in during the day, but I’ll need you to be there, too, so you might as well stay.’

‘What do you need me for?’ Marginally reassured by the promise of a room to herself, Daisy had just taken a bite of her roll and her voice was rather indistinct.

‘In case people turn up.’ The wine waiter was presenting the bottle for Seth’s inspection, and he tasted the wine before giving a cursory nod and turning back to Daisy. ‘I’ve got a number of business meetings scheduled, but other people tend to drop by for one reason or another and that means you being there to prove that I can’t bear not to have you at my side.’

‘I can’t sit around all day just on the off chance that someone’s going to drop by,’ she protested. ‘I’ll go potty without anything to do.’

Seth watched the waiter pour the wine into her glass. ‘I’d have thought you’d be used to that.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Daisy indignantly. Most days she hardly got a chance to sit down at all!

‘Being an out-of-work actress,’ he explained, raising an eyebrow at her expression. ‘I’ve always imagined that meant sitting by the phone, waiting for the call to stardom.’

She had forgotten that she was meant to be an actress. ‘That’s the advantage of an answering machine,’ she said. Really, she was getting quite good at lying! ‘It means I can keep busy.’

‘Doing what?’ Or can I guess from that very talented performance you gave this afternoon?’

Daisy shot him a hostile look. She didn’t want to be reminded about that particular performance. ‘Actually, I work in a flower shop,’ she said coldly, deciding that it was best to keep as close to the truth as possible. ‘When I haven’t got a part, that is,’ she added, just to remind him of her acting credentials.

‘I don’t suppose you earn much in a flower shop?’ said Seth, who could have bought a whole chain of flower shops without even noticing a blip in his bank balance.